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This is me

A busy mind in many places. One of my children was asked what I did for a living. The list given includes my main occupation of farming but also goes on to school bus driver, carpentry, furniture making, developer, designer, landscaping, handyman and more. I've traveled in most states of the union (I'm missing two) and several foreign countries. My favorite vacation is a trip to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. I like to read. Favorite authors include western author Louis L'Amour, science fiction writer Anne McCaffrey and architect Sarah Susanka. I like to sing and am a bass in our local barbershop chorus. In church I also prefer the bass part. My best friend and wife, Karen, and I have 3 children who are all busy and happily building their own lives. We have twin granddaughters born in September 2011 and another granddaughter born in April 2014.

The diversity and tenacity of life on our planet are really remarkable. There is some form of life everywhere. There is not a place anywhere where some kind of life cannot make it. The history of our world since life first started shows the tenacity of the life forces at work. When one form of life dies out another eventually comes to replace it.

Now comes man, the ultimate surviver. Man not only has found a way to live on every piece of dirt, rock and ice on our planet, he is digging deep into the earth, and flying out beyond the atmosphere. In the process he has changed every place he goes. I’m not sure it is for the better.

The growing population of humankind has spread his home and his garbage into every environment on earth. I’m afraid we may now be going a bit too far. Past history of the earth says that whenever a species becomes too populous, something comes along to reduce it’s numbers. What will be the downfall of man?

China is now struggling with the effects of too many people. They may be a warning for us all. So many skies are brown where China’s people live, and they are struggling to make things better, but even they recognize that it will take years to turn things around. The effects of the fast paced development in the Chinese cities have caused so many problems for land, water and air. This has lead to health problems for plants, animals and people near them.

The more developed countries also went through their periods of rapid growth and pollution problems. Although they have cleaned up their worst pollution problems, their fight is not over. Although the rivers may no longer burn, there are terrible problems yet to be conquered.

And yet the earth and it’s life will survive. Humans have such a short life that they do not realize how much will and can change. We may yet kill ourselves off with our wars, our greed or our pollution, but the earth and life will still be here. Volcanos, earthquakes, flood and fires will eventually cleanse the land. Millions of years from now the earth will have recycled itself. Will there be people around to see it? What creature will be on top in that far off time? Only the future knows.